essay on turkey earthquake 2023

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Here's what we know about what caused the Turkey earthquake

Joe Hernandez

Geoff Brumfiel

A man searches for people in the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaziantep, Turkey, on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023. Mustafa Karali/AP hide caption

A man searches for people in the rubble of a destroyed building in Gaziantep, Turkey, on Monday, Feb. 6, 2023.

The area of Turkey and Syria that has been hardest hit by Monday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks is known for having big quakes, but it had been decades since one this large last hit.

More than 5,000 people had died across the region.

Here's a look at what happened, geologically-speaking, and why it has caused so much damage.

Earthquakes are common in Turkey and Syria

The Arabian Peninsula is part of a tectonic plate that is making its way north into the Eurasian Plate, and the entire nation of Turkey is getting squeezed aside.

Middle East

Rescuers work for second day to find quake survivors as death toll surpasses 5,000.

"Arabia has slowly been moving north and has been colliding with Turkey, and Turkey is moving out of the way to the west," says Michael Steckler of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory .

That tectonic shift has been behind earthquakes for millennia in the area, including one that flattened the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1138. More recent quakes, such as the 1999 one that struck the city of İzmit, have killed many thousands.

A Turkish castle that withstood centuries of invasions is damaged in the earthquake

Monday's quake is believed to be the most powerful that Turkey has seen in more than 80 years.

This particular region was overdue for a big one

Most of the largest earthquakes in the past hundred years have been along the North Anatolian Fault.

But stress has been building along another major fault: the East Anatolian Fault. That fault has seen some big earthquakes in the past, says Patricia Martínez-Garzón, a seismologist at GFZ Potsdam, a research center in Germany. But more recently, there hasn't been as much activity.

"It was unusually quiet in the last century," she says.

The Picture Show

Photos: a devastating earthquake hits turkey and syria.

Some researchers had begun to suspect the fault was due for a major quake, according to Fatih Bulut, with the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. His research group and others had run computer models showing that this fault could have a magnitude 7.4 or greater earthquake.

"This is not a surprise for us," Bulut tells NPR.

But that doesn't mean that seismologists could say exactly when a big one would hit, according to Ian Main, a seismologist at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. The time between big quakes on a fault can vary quite a bit in unpredictable ways, he says. "They're not like buses, they don't come along on a timetable."

No, you cannot predict earthquakes, the USGS says

And not all the shaking has occurred on this one fault. The initial quake spilled over onto the Dead Sea Transform, another fault region where the Arabian, Anatolian and African plates converge. And a second, magnitude 7.5 quake took place hours later on a nearby fault that had been mapped but isn't part of the East Anatolian Fault.

"It's a pretty busy and complicated area with multiple fault systems," Steckler says.

This was a "strike-slip" earthquake

This earthquake occurred because "two pieces of the Earth are sliding horizontally past each other," Steckler says. It's the same kind of quake that occurs along the San Andreas fault in California.

In this case, the Arabian Plate is sliding past the Anatolian Plate.

That sliding motion also meant the shaking was spread out for many kilometers along the fault, says Bulut. The affected area "is quite large," he says. "Ten cities were structurally affected in Turkey."

Turkey has seismic codes to try to prevent buildings from collapsing, but Bulut says because this region has escaped a major quake for decades, it's possible that some older buildings are vulnerable. "Sometimes there are very old things, built before the rules existed," he says.

Steckler says he suspects that even some newer buildings may not have been up to code. "I know, certainly in Istanbul, there's a lot of illegal construction that goes on," he says.

More aftershocks are likely

The U.S. Geological Survey has already recorded more than a hundred aftershocks in the region, and experts expect they will continue for some time.

"That whole area, all the pieces of the Earth will slowly adjust and break and rupture and come to a new equilibrium," Steckler says.

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Key developments in the aftermath of the Turkey, Syria quake

An elderly woman from the Teke family lies inside a tent at a camp for earthquake displaced people in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A car is smashed after a building collapsed due to the earthquake in Samandag, southern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. The number of people killed in the Feb. 6 earthquakes that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise. As chances of finding more survivors dwindled, some foreign search teams that rushed in to help have started leaving. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Earthquake displaced people attend Friday prayers at a camp in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A man steps out of a green house where he and his relatives are staying after the earthquake in Samandag, southern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. The number of people killed in the Feb. 6 earthquakes that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise. As chances of finding more survivors dwindled, some foreign search teams that rushed in to help have started leaving. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The son of the Sonmez family recovers a carpet from the family flat after the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Children play in a camp for earthquake displaced people in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Osman Teke, 82, at a camp for earthquake displaced people in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Residentes remove their belongings from their destroyed house after the earthquake, in Samandag, southern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. The number of people killed in the Feb. 6 earthquakes that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise. As chances of finding more survivors dwindled, some foreign search teams that rushed in to help have started leaving. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

People recover items from a house affected during the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Excavators work at the site of buildings that collapsed during the earthquake in Kahramanmaras, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 17, 2023. A 7.8 magnitude earthquake with its epicenter in Turkey’s southeastern Kharamanmaras province struck in the early hours of Feb. 6, followed by multiple aftershocks, including a major one magnitude 7.5 nine hours after the first tremor. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

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KAHRAMANMARAS, Turkey (AP) — Rescuers have pulled more survivors from the debris of the Feb. 6 earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria even as the window for finding people alive shrank.

Here’s a look at the key developments Friday from the aftermath of the earthquake.

DEATH TOLL RISES

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu updated the death toll in Turkey to 39,672, bringing the overall number of earthquake fatalities in both Turkey and Syria to 43,360.

The figure is certain to increase further as search teams retrieve more bodies amid the devastation.

The powerful magnitude 7.8 earthquake was the deadliest disaster in Turkey’s modern history.

MORE SURVIVORS RESCUED

Rescuers on Friday removed a survivor from the rubble of a collapsed building in the district of Defne, in hard-hit Hatay province, more than 11 days after the powerful earthquake struck.

Hakan Yasinoğlu, 45, spent 278 hours beneath the rubble, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. TV footage showed him being carried on a stretcher to an ambulance.

Search teams working overnight also found a woman and two men alive in earthquake wreckage.

The latest rescues came as crews began clearing debris in cities devastated by the earthquake .

Neslihan Kilic, a 29-year-old mother of two, was removed from the rubble of a building in Kahramanmaras, after being trapped for 258 hours, private DHA news agency reported late Thursday.

In the city of Antakya, police rescue crews found a 12-year-old boy named Osman alive after retrieving 17 bodies from a collapsed building.

“Just when our hopes were over, we reached our brother Osman at the 260th hour,” police rescue team leader Okan Tosun told DHA.

An hour later, crews reached two men inside the debris of a collapsed hospital in Antakya.

One of them, Mustafa Avci, used the mobile phone of a rescuer to call his brother and ask about family members.

“Have they all survived? he asked. “Let me hear their voices.”

UN AID CROSSES INTO SYRIA

A total of 178 trucks carrying aid from Turkey into northwest Syria have crossed the border since Feb. 9, the United Nations said.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the trucks are carrying a “multitude” of items from six U.N. agencies — including tents, mattresses, blankets, winter clothes, cholera testing kits, essential medicines, and food from the World Food Program.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said that according to recent assessments in Syria’s northwest, 50,000 households need tents or emergency shelter and at least 88,000 households need mattresses, thermal blankets and clothing. In addition, the U.N.’s partners says hospitals and medical centers “are overstretched and under-resourced,” he said.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, said it was working closely with Turkey to determine the steps needed to rehabilitate infrastructure in the agricultural sector damaged by the quake, including irrigation systems, roads, markets and storage capacity.

“In Syria, rapid assessments by FAO of areas affected by the earthquakes suggest major disruption to crop and livestock production capacity, threatening immediate and longer-term food security,” the Rome-based agency said in a statement.

SYRIANS’ RETURN

The bodies of at least 1,522 Syrians have been brought back to Syria from Turkey for burial, an official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, reported that when the numbers from other, smaller crossings are tallied, the number of earthquake victims returned to Syria for burial is 1,745.

Syrian survivors have also begun crossing back from Turkey. Some 1,795 Syrians crossed from Turkey into Syria on Wednesday, the first day after Turkey agreed to allow Syrian refugees impacted by the earthquake to return to their country temporarily without losing their protected status in Turkey, an official at the Bab al-Hawa border crossing said.

The decision allows holders of Turkish temporary protection cards residing in earthquake-damaged areas to cross into Syria without having to obtain a travel permit from Turkish authorities. Normally, Turkey would consider Syrians holding protected status who crossed into Syria without a permit to have relinquished their status as asylum-seekers. They would be required to surrender their protection cards and banned from reentering Turkey for five years.

SPAIN TO TAKE IN 100 SYRIANS

Spain says it will take in some 100 Syrian refugees in Turkey that have suffered in the earthquake. Migration Minister José Luis Escrivá said the refugees would be those considered most vulnerable and badly affected by the quake.

Making the announcement late Thursday, Escrivá said “the earthquake reminds us of Syria’s drama in a tremendous way and we are going to try to help within our possibilities.”

OVER 1,500 CHILDREN SEPARATED FROM FAMILIES

Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay said the state was caring for 1,589 children who were separated from their families in the earthquake, including 247 who have not yet been identified.

He said 953 children had been reunited with their families.

Oktay also said search and rescue teams were working at fewer than 200 sites, with Hatay province accounting for the largest number.

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed.

Follow AP’s earthquake coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/earthquakes

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• 06 March 2023

What Turkey’s earthquake tells us about the science of seismic forecasting

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Two decades ago, John McCloskey drew a red line on a map of southeastern Turkey to pinpoint where a large earthquake would probably strike. The only question was when.

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Nature 615 , 388-389 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00685-y

Nalbant, S. S., McCloskey, J., Steacy, S. & Barka, A. A. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 195 , 291–298 (2002).

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McCloskey, J., Nalbant, S. & Steacy, S. Nature 434 , 291 (2005).

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Georgetown Environmental Law Review

The environmental impact and aftermath of the turkey-syria earthquakes.

February 27, 2023 by Eli Rivas

Rubble from collapsed and heavily damaged buildings in the foreground with snowcapped mountains visible in the background.

On February 6, 2023, a colossal 7.8 magnitude earthquake, followed shortly after by a 7.6 magnitude aftershock struck Turkey, its epicenter closest to the city of Kahramanmaras. Over 50,000 people have died in large part due to building collapses, with casualties stretching from Turkey to neighboring Syria. [i] Beyond the death toll and destruction, the earthquake has also created wider environmental concerns, both immediate and long-term.

The seismic activity severely damaged water and sanitation infrastructure in the region. [ii] As organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States’ Federal Emergency Management Agency have identified, disruption to water services caused by earthquakes “increases the risk of waterborne diseases and outbreaks of communicable diseases,” and survivors should be immediately assisted with the location and provision of clean water. [iii] Turkish health authorities have been able to offer tetanus shots for those who request it, with the WHO providing additional support in monitoring waterborne diseases. [iv] The United Nations is also providing aid, including the distribution of cholera tests. [v] However, temporary drinking water sources and sanitary bathing and restroom facilities have been too few to support those affected, [vi] and repair of critical water infrastructure will remain a long-term problem.

The earthquake has also created geological problems. The coastal city of Iskenderun experienced subsidence, which in turn led to flooding in the region. [vii] Some coastal communities have even experienced encroachment from sea water as far as 200 meters inland. [viii] In addition to the threat of waterborne diseases described previously, many hillsides are at risk of landslip, and satellite imagery shows evidence of numerous landslides and rockfalls. [ix] The effect of the geological problems could create additional impacts on infrastructure, with roads and pipelines needing to be rebuilt and redirected, and rural communities will likely be disproportionately affected in comparison to urban communities. [x]

The disaster in Kahramanmaras also begs a deeper question: how do humans create communities that can exist in harmony with the inherent challenges that the environment presents? In particular, many cities that exist in earthquake-prone communities must take seriously the challenge of constructing homes and buildings made to withstand significant seismic activity. After destructive earthquakes in 1999 and 2011, Turkish authorities tightened construction regulations in order to have more buildings retrofitted for earthquakes. [xi] Turkish officials have responded to the numerous collapsed buildings in the most recent quake by investigating over 130 people involved in the construction of those buildings and even detaining some contractors they believe to be at fault. [xii] Even so, there is also evidence that the regulations themselves were not stringently enforced, which may place some part of the blame back on the parts of the Turkish government responsible for enforcing them. [xiii]

There is no obvious answer to the question of the humans’ relationship with their environment, but law can be one tool in facing down challenges, especially where legislation or regulations can be created or enforced to protect people, critical infrastructure, and the environment. The Turkey-Syria earthquakes underscore the vital importance of working towards an answer to that question.

[i] Death toll climbs above 50,000 after Turkey, Syria earthquakes , Al Jazeera (Feb. 25, 2023), https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/25/death-toll-climbs-above-50000-after-turkey-syria-earthquakes#:~:text=In%20Turkey%20alone%2C%2044%2C218%20people,toll%20in%20Syria%20was%205%2C914.

[ii] Henriette Chacar, Disease the new threat as Turkey faces post-quake water shortage , Reuters (Feb. 15, 2023, 9:06 AM), https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/disease-new-threat-turkey-faces-post-quake-water-shortage-2023-02-15/.

[iii] See id (internal quotations omitted); Jaclyn Diaz, The earthquake in Turkey and Syria offers lessons and reminders for disaster response , NPR (Feb. 16, 2023, 5:01 AM), https://www.npr.org/2023/02/16/1156636019/the-earthquake-in-turkey-and-syria-offers-lessons-and-reminders-for-disaster-res.

[iv] Diaz, supra note 3.

[v] Tiffany Wertheimer, Turkey earthquake: Girl survives 10 days under quake rubble , BBC News (Feb. 16, 2023), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64662941.

[vi] Chacar, supra note 2.

[vii] Kate Ravilious, Geological impact of Turkey-Syria earthquake slowly comes into focus , The Guardian (Feb. 10, 2023, 6:29 AM), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/10/geological-impact-of-turkey-syria-earthquake-slowly-comes-into-focus.

[viii] Id .

[xi] Jake Horton & William Armstrong, Turkey earthquake: Why did so many buildings collapse? , BBC News (Feb. 9, 2023), https://www.bbc.com/news/64568826; Diaz, supra note 3.

[xii] Justin Spike et. al., Turkey probes contractors as earthquake deaths pass 33,000 , Associated Press (Feb. 12, 2023), https://apnews.com/article/2023-turkey-syria-earthquake-government-business-658d897fe02316c474a8cc8078b690a3.

[xiii] Spike et. al., supra note 12; Horton & Armstrong, supra note 11.

A year in the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake – a photo essay

Photographer David Lombeida has spent the last 12 months documenting five families as they recover from the immediate devastation of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the south of the country and the harsh realities of rebuilding their lives today

Read more: ‘No one can bring back what we lost’: fear rise in Turkish city ravaged by earthquake

T he living and the dead will soon be side by side on the outskirts of Antakya, where new government housing under construction to house the survivors of last year’s deadly earthquakes overlooks graveyards for those who perished.

“No one can bring back what was lost, as we lost everything,” said İsa Akbaba, who lost seven members of his extended family including his elder sister, Sıdıka, and his younger brother, Musa, during a visit to the cemetary.

Tuesday 6 February will mark a year since twin deadly earthquakes destroyed their homes in Turkey’s southernmost province, wrenching apart buildings as much of Antakya was destroyed. İsa’s mother, Suat Akbaba, was trapped under layers of debris for hours before she was eventually rescued.

Sıdıka and Musa were not so lucky. They are two among the 50,783 people estimated to have died in southern Turkey.

One month after the earthquake, Suat, her son, İsa, and their extended family live in tents outside their destroyed apartment block.

Six months on (left), the family prepares a meal in the outdoor kitchen they built after being displaced and (right) Suat’s niece fetches water to prepare the food for dinner.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan travelled to the earthquake zone soon after the initial destruction, his sleek presidential sedan weaving among wreckage that many blamed on corruption within Turkey’s two-decade construction boom, a hallmark of his rule.

Erdoğan was quick to promise his citizens solutions to the damage, which spanned an area larger than the size of Belgium and the Netherlands combined and cost the country almost 10% of its GDP, according to a parliamentary inquiry. “Our citizens should not worry. We will never allow for them to remain unsheltered,” he told the public during his visit to the quake zone, even as many, like the Akbabas, set up camp outside.

Erdoğan also promised reconstruction at breakneck speed, even as results appeared remote when towering piles of rubble covered swaths of the country.

“We will rebuild these buildings within one year and will hand them back to citizens,” he said , just four days after the earthquakes struck.

For months after the quakes, the grinding of machinery echoed across much of Turkey’s south-east, as workers tore down thousands of former homes and offices across the earthquake zone. Many, like the Akbabas, lived among the rubble. In other places, near the epicentre of the quakes – often those more closely associated with support for Erdoğan – government workers broke ground on new buildings a month after the earthquakes struck.

Because the Akbabas rented their former apartment, they will not be eligible for any of the 319,000 new homes that the president promised will be handed over to citizens.

Like many across Antakya, they are surveilling the empty lots that used to be their neighbourhood and waiting for private reconstruction, doubtful that they will be able to find somewhere they can afford to live amid a nationwide housing crisis and rising inflation.

One year after the earthquake, Suat and Isa mourn the death their family members Sıdıka and Musa in front of a cluster of concrete skeletons – new government housing for others who survived the earthquakes.

The Akbabas have also grown used to mourning. Well into the summer months after the earthquake, they gathered next to the remains of their destroyed apartment block, grateful to be together as a family even as they lived among mounds of rubble and cement dust in a makeshift camp.

Local officials abruptly expelled them from the site in November, dispersing the family into container camps scattered around Antakya’s outskirts. The site of their former building is now a pit filled with construction equipment, ready to build a new apartment building that others could live in.

The Akbabas miss their former apartment, part of the daily suffering wrought by the earthquakes. “Our pain is still fresh,” said İsa.

Kenan Kadı, his wife, Gamze, and their three children lived in their car in Antakya immediately after the earthquake. Kenan and Gamze would stay up all night so their children – Mehmet, Ela and one-year-old Cemre – could sleep in the car.

Kenan, Gamze and their three children in the car where they slept after the earthquake had made their home uninhabitable in February 2023.

(Left) the family shares a meal provided by aid workers with other families days after the earthquake. (Right) six months after the earthquake, Kenan takes a break at his family’s company in Antakya.

Six months on, the family moved to their summer home in Arsuz on the coast where they also accommodated some friends who were displaced from the earthquake. Kenan and his brother Sedat run a business making marble gravestones and countertops at the edge of Antakya. Kenan works during the week and then drives to the coast at weekends to spend time with his family.

Kenan and his family at their summer home in Arsuz in August 2023.

The vision for Antakya’s renewal, a masterplan designed by a consortium of international architectural firms spearheaded by Britain’s Foster + Partners, offers something markedly different from the city’s past.

Sedat Kadı was skeptical about the rebuilding efforts, and neither he nor his brother said they had any interest in buying one of the new apartments despite the offer of government loans.

“The aim of this reconstruction project is to push poor people out of town,” he said. “If the point is to rebuild the centre for the rich and to leave the poor aside, it would be better not to do it at all.”

For Kenan and his brother Sedat, the business of making gravestones and new construction meant the earthquake has created a morbid business opportunity, although they say they are primarily focused on being grateful to be alive. A few months after the earthquakes decimated Antakya, they noticed a sudden overwhelming demand for gravestones. The family business went from manufacturing a couple a week to an estimated four each day, and the deluge of orders continues even as the anniversary approached.

“The earthquake became a reason to work,” he said ruefully. “We don’t know what to pray for: the souls of the dead, more business, or just to be thankful that we’re alive.”

Kenan and his cousin Hasan Emre select a piece of marble for a customer in January 2024.

Although the Kadıs work in construction, they were unconvinced by the new construction on the edge of Antakya, a pilot project offering ringed by posters of gleaming new apartment buildings with offers of government-subsided loans.

The Koyunlu family lived in the small village of Tevekkeli outside the city of Kahramanmaraş. Their home completely collapsed, but Ismael, his wife, Nazire, and their daughter Berivan were able to escape in time.

One month after the earthquake, dead farm animals belonging to a neighbour of the Koyunlu family remain under the rubble.

One month after the earthquake, (left) Nazire and Ismail prepare gas canisters for cooking outside their collapsed home in Tevekkeli and (right) the family share tea in a shed next to their house.

A month after the earthquake, the family were living in a shed next to their former home after retrieving all the belongings that they could from the rubble.

Nazire at the entrance to her home in the village of Tevekkeli in February 2023.

Six months later the family were still living in the shed. They built a deck outside for sleeping, as temperatures can reach over 40C. An excavator removed the rubble of their home, leaving an empty plot.

Erdoğan promised his citizens 319,000 new homes would be delivered by February, with the same amount constructed and supplied the following year.

A spokesperson for the Turkish presidency said in late January that “the construction of a total of 307,000 houses has started. The delivery of a total of 46,000 houses … has started gradually.”

Nazire prepares the beds outside before the sun sets on 19 August 2023.

Yusuf Sr, his wife, Fatma, and their children were at home in the city of Kahramanmaraş when the earthquake struck. The entrance to the house became blocked by falling debris but they were able to escape. They didn’t receive any aid for weeks, and so bought their own tarpaulin, which they used to build a shelter outside their home. At one point, 17 members of Fatma’s extended family were living in the shelter.

One month after the earthquake, the family sit at the shelter that they built outside their destroyed home.

Six months later the government provided the family with a container, but it was too small for all of them to inhabit. It would have also been impossible for Yusuf Sr to run his scrap business from the container city. When asking Yusuf Sr if things have improved, he replied: “The last time you came here we had hope: nowadays we don’t even have that.”

(Left) Fatma is consoled by her son Yusuf outside their shelter on 1 March 2023 and (right) six months on , Fatma tends to her blind son Berat, who is cracking walnuts in his uncle’s home in Kahramanmaraş.

Their youngest son, Berat, 11, is blind. His family cannot afford the medication that he needs. Three years ago, his mother, Fatma, was diagnosed with leukaemia, which has recently progressed to stage four. She had been undergoing state-provided chemotherapy for more than two years. After the treatment she was given her two medicines, which she was told would be free for earthquake victims. However, they turned out to cost over €1,000, which the family also couldn’t afford.

The family spends time on the patio of the home they are renting from a relative on 27 January 2024.

January 2024 (Left) Fatma in her family’s rented house last week. She was diagnosed with leukaemia three years ago. (Right) Yusuf Jr at the container where he sleeps alone.

Engin, his wife, Zeriban, and their newborn daughter Ismihan were at home in Adıyaman when the earthquake hit. After their apartment received substantial structural damage, Engin and his family left the city for the village of Aydınoluk, where he grew up. They shared a communal tent there with 20 family members.

Women prepare food in the village of Aydınoluk, where Engin and his family moved immediately after the earthquake.

One month after the earthquake, (left) Engin stands outside his damaged home; his sister, brother-in-law and their three children were all killed in the disaster. (Right) Engin, Zeriban and Ismihan in August 2023 outside the container given to them by the government in Adıyaman.

They were eventually given a container back in Adıyaman by the government. After six months there, the family moved back into their home after taking out a loan to rebuild it.

Engin spends time with his daughter Ismihan on the patio of their rebuilt home in January 2024.

Across Antakya, posters showing restoration line streets where former ancient mosques, bathhouses and covered markets stood. Some show images of reconstruction that are different in character to what previously stood in the city, a centre of multiculturalism for thousands of years.

For many of Antakya’s residents, the reconstruction is unable to bring back the communities who once made their city unique, many of whom are now dispersed throughout the country or buried in the graveyards that dot its outskirts.At the entrance to Antakya, surrounded by areas now cleared of rubble, the clock tower remains stuck on the time the earthquakes struck: Just after 4am on 6 February, when everything changed for the city, and for the entire country.

All photographs by David Lombeida ; words by Ruth Michaelson and David Lombeida with assistance from Ayça Aldatmaz; picture editing and design by Jim Powell

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Last updated: April 25, 2024

2023 Turkey-Syria Earthquake

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On Feb. 6, 2023, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake occurred in southern Turkey near the northern border of Syria. This quake was followed approximately nine hours later by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake located around 59 miles (95 kilometers) to the southwest.

The first earthquake was the most devastating to hit earthquake-prone Turkey in more than 20 years and was as strong as one in 1939, the most powerful recorded there. It was centered near Gaziantep in south-central Turkey, home to thousands of Syrian refugees and the many humanitarian aid organizations also based there.

The country of Turkey is  recognized in English as Türkiye  by the United Nations (UN).

Syria’s current complex humanitarian emergency is among the largest humanitarian crises in the world and the earthquake has only exacerbated the situation and vulnerabilities.

One year on, although some reconstruction has begun and philanthropy has been generous in its response, much of the affected areas in Turkey are still in ruins . One in three children displaced by the earthquake is still homeless , needs in Syria remain high and survivors continue to deal with the impacts of the disaster, including the mental trauma .

In a February 2024 Syria Humanitarian Update , published in April, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) described the context in these terms: “The socioeconomic situation has continued to deteriorate, further exacerbated by the February earthquakes, negatively impacting social cohesion and amplifying vulnerabilities.”

(Photo: Members of the Turkish Armed Forces conduct search and rescue efforts after the earthquake, Feb. 7, 2023. (Source: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Defence via Twitter )

By March 1, 2023, more than 11,000 aftershocks occurred according to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) .

One obstacle in providing aid in Syria is that the government does not control all the northwest, the area hardest hit by the earthquake. Coordinated assistance by the UN to Syria’s northwest arrives across the border from Turkey, while Damascus is where assistance is coordinated within the rest of government-controlled Syria.

In December 2023, 494 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies passed through Bab Al-Hawa, 52 through Bab Al-Salam and one through Al-Rai. The use of Bab Al-Hawa for UN cross-border aid delivery was extended until July 13, 2024 . The use of Bab Al-Salam and Al-Rai was extended for an additional three months until May 13, 2024.

In January 2024, several aid agencies issued a statement raising concerns “over the vulnerability and long-term sustainability of the modality.” Currently, access through Bab Al-Hawa depends on the Syrian government’s approval, which has occurred in six-month periods.

Latest Updates

Feb. 5, 2024

What we’re watching: Weekly disaster update, February 5

Oct. 31, 2023

Announcing grants to support Turkey-Syria earthquake recovery

July 27, 2023

How do you recover from a massive earthquake? What’s next in Turkey and Syria?

Feb. 27, 2023

What we’re watching: Weekly disaster update, February 27

Feb. 23, 2023

The Patterson Foundation Contributes $375,000 to CDP’s Turkey & Syria Earthquake Recovery Fund

• The earthquakes and underlying vulnerabilities resulted in the deaths of at least 56,000 people in Turkey and Syria . Local actors reported that authorities stopped counting and this figure is most likely much higher. Aid workers were among those killed .
• The humanitarian community estimated that 8.8 million people lived in areas most affected by the earthquake in Syria. Overall, 170 sub-districts in 43 districts in 10 of Syria’s governorates were impacted by the earthquake. Prior to the earthquake, more than 15 million people in Syria were already in need of assistance in 2023.
• At least 230,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed across 11 provinces in Turkey and at least 10,600 buildings were completely or partially destroyed in northwest Syria. In Aleppo alone, around 3,500 buildings were damaged and need structural repair and 700 buildings were classified as unsafe.
• According to the World Bank’s Global Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimation (GRADE) Report , direct damages in Turkey from the earthquakes are estimated at $34.2 billion. The report says the reconstruction costs “will be higher depending on the extent of new construction codes and guidelines being used.”
• The Syria Earthquake 2023 Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) found that the country’s real gross domestic product was expected to contract by 5.5% in 2023 following the February 6 and February 20 earthquakes.
• The Syria Earthquake 2023 RDNA said physical damages caused by the earthquake were estimated at $3.7 billion, while losses were estimated at US $1.5 billion. The total estimated impact to US $5.2 billion. The GRADE Report for Syria had estimated $5.1 billion in direct physical damages. The RDNA estimated recovery and reconstruction needs across the six assessed governorates at $7.9 billion.
• In earthquake-affected provinces of Turkey, about 40% of households live below the poverty line , compared to 32% nationwide. It is estimated that this rate could rise to more than 50%.
• UNDP said the earthquakes generated at least 10 times as much rubble in Turkey as the last big Turkish earthquake in 1999. Both affected countries face the daunting task of disposing of hundreds of millions of tonnes of rubble, some of it potentially harmful.

Existing humanitarian crisis worsened

In northwest Syria, the hardest hit area of the country, 4.1 million people already depended on humanitarian assistance before the earthquakes.

According to UNOCHA , “In 2022, 85 per cent of households [in Syria] were unable to meet their basic needs, with a disproportionate impact on populations with vulnerabilities compounded by age, gender, and/or disability. In a country where only 59 per cent of hospitals, 57 per cent of primary health care facilities and 63 per cent of specialized centres were fully functional before the earthquake, this earthquake will result in a further collapse of basic services, and significantly delay any scope for recovery.”

The 2024 Humanitarian Needs Overview for Syria said, “The socioeconomic situation has continued to deteriorate, further exacerbated by the February earthquakes, negatively impacting social cohesion, and amplifying vulnerabilities.”

The Syrian complex humanitarian emergency is characterized by nearly 13 years of ongoing hostilities and their long-term effects, including large-scale internal and cross-border displacement, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, and significant violations of international humanitarian law.

In the wake of the earthquakes, there was a lull in fighting; however, as detailed in a March 23, 2023 briefing to the UN Security Council , UN officials warned of the slow rise in shelling exchanges, rocket fire and crossline raids by terrorist groups. The UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria told the Security Council on Dec. 21, 2023, that violence is raging in all theatres of Syria.

For more on Syria’s CHE, see CDP’s Syria Humanitarian Crisis disaster profile .

Food insecurity

According to Syria’s 2024 Humanitarian Needs Overview , at least 12.9 people across Syria need food assistance. By October 2023, the food basket cost had doubled compared to January 2023 and had quadrupled in two years.

On June 13, 2023, WFP said it would be forced to end food assistance to 2.5 million Syrians in July 2023 if donors did not provide at least $180 million to fund programs through 2023. On Dec. 4, 2023, WFP announced it would end its main assistance program in Syria in January 2024. In the absence of monthly food baskets, some families reported resorting to eating once a day , even in the month of Ramadan in 2024, so their children could eat more.

A post-earthquake rapid needs assessment on agricultural livelihoods and production in northwest Syria conducted by FAO found that more than a third of the key informants reported damage to community-level agricultural structures and up to 80% reported damage to agricultural equipment in their village. Agriculture is a major source of livelihood in these communities, raising concerns about affected people’s ability to provide for themselves.

In Turkey, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that the earthquakes caused $6.7 billion in losses and damage to crops, livestock production, food stocks, agricultural infrastructure and assets.

FAO also said that the earthquake severely impacted 11 key agricultural Turkish provinces affecting more than 15 million people and more than 20% of the country’s food production.

These damages will have a knock on effect on food security in the country. Meeting the food security and livelihood needs of underserved populations in Turkey is a challenge, especially in rural areas and informal settlements.

Ongoing disaster risk

According to ACAPS, new earthquakes are among the worst-case scenarios for the region because they could impact humanitarian needs and the ability to meet them. Damaged buildings are at high risk of collapse, and survivors may continue to experience ongoing fear while also beginning to deal with lasting trauma .

On Feb. 20, 2023, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake killed three people and injured 213 in southern Turkey. On Feb. 27, 2023, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake shook southern Turkey , causing damaged buildings to collapse and killing at least one person.

Following the earthquake, a dam collapsed in northwestern Syria, causing the overflow of the Orontes River . The flood led to the displacements of people from the village of Al-Tlul in Idlib governorate. Approximately 7,000 people were evacuated, and 1,000 houses flooded across the nearby villages of Hardana, Delbiya, Jakara and Hamziyeh.

On March 15, 2023, floods caused by heavy rains resulted in the deaths of 15 people in the southern Turkey provinces of Sanliurfa and Adiyaman. Two people died in Adiyaman when waters swept away a container home where a group of earthquake survivors was living. Some people were evacuated from a waterlogged campsite where earthquake survivors were sheltering in tents.

On March 18, 2023, heavy rainfall and storms affected northwest Syria, destroying around 600 tents and damaging 897 . Most of these tent sites were created for displaced people following the earthquakes.

The floods are an example of an indirect and cascading disaster impact that humanitarians must account for while trying to minimize risk as they provide assistance and begin recovery.

Earthquakes are among the most devastating natural hazards. Turkey’s two main fault zones make the region one of the most seismically active in the world . Natural hazards only become disasters when they interact with a human society or community, referred to as vulnerability in disaster studies.

In this disaster, vulnerability looks like poorly constructed buildings that do not meet modern earthquake building standards, thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey or displaced people in northwest Syria that live in informal settlements, destruction of infrastructure within Syria after years of war and aerial bombings, an ongoing complex humanitarian emergency in Syria due to conflict, and a cholera outbreak .

For these reasons, the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria cannot be called a “natural disaster.” While natural hazards, such as earthquakes, are inevitable, their impact on society is not . People affected by the disaster know this instinctively due to their lived experience. One shop owner in southern Turkey said, “We knew that we lived in an earthquake zone. It’s not fate. People are to blame for making weak buildings .”

Funders can help minimize the impact of this unfolding disaster and additional disasters in Turkey and Syria by advocating for safe building construction, supporting risk communication campaigns, investing over the long-term to ensure full recovery that incorporates risk reduction, and strengthening preparedness and resilience.

At least 10,600 buildings were completely or partially destroyed in northwest Syria. In Aleppo alone, around 3,500 buildings are damaged and need structural repair and 700 buildings were classified as unsafe.

According to the World Bank’s Global Rapid Post-Disaster Damage Estimation Report , direct damages in Turkey from the earthquakes were estimated at $34.2 billion. The total direct damages are mostly damages to residential buildings ($18 billion or 53% of total). The report said that based on global experience, “recovery and reconstruction costs will be much larger, potentially twice as large” as the $34.2 billion figure.

The GRADE Report for Syria estimated $5.1 billion in direct physical damages. The World Bank says, “Direct damages to residential buildings account for nearly half of total damages (48.5% of the median value or US$2.5 billion), while damages in non-residential buildings (e.g., health facilities, schools, government buildings, and private sector buildings) account for one third of the total impact (33.5% or US $9.7 billion).”

Additionally, the GRADE Report for Syria found that “Aleppo (population of 4.2 million) was the most severely hit governorate with 45% of the estimated damages (US$2.3 billion) followed by Idlib (37% or US$1.9 billion) and Lattakia (11% or US$549 million).”

Cash assistance

As with most disasters and emergencies,  cash donations  are recommended by disaster experts as they allow for on-the-ground agencies to direct funds to the most significant area of need, support economic recovery and ensure donation management does not detract from disaster recovery needs and quickly re-establishing access to basic needs.

According to a REACH rapid assessment in February 2023 involving 604 communities in northwest Syria, multi-purpose cash assistance was the top priority need among affected communities. In Turkey, humanitarians were urged to emphasize the importance of transitioning from in-kind aid provision to cash response .

The Center for Disaster Philanthropy recommends cash both as a donation method and a recovery strategy. Direct cash assistance can allow families to purchase items and services that address their multiple needs. It gives each family flexibility and choice , ensuring that support is relevant and timely. Cash-based approaches to disaster recovery also give people the freedom to choose how they rebuild their lives and provide a pathway to economic empowerment.

CALP Network compiled information and advice for those involved in cash and voucher assistance programming in Turkey and Syria drawing on learning from comparable crises. The CALP Network published a report on the scale-up of cash coordination for the Syria earthquake response in October 2023. While identifying challenges in the response, the report also “found an effective cash coordination steered by a well-organized cash working group sharing timely and clear guidance to its members and across sectors.”

Striking without warning, earthquakes often are among the most devastating natural hazards. The aftermath of an earthquake can bring immediate and long-term health impacts, especially in lower-middle-income countries. This is especially concerning in the context of Syria where a cholera outbreak was spreading before the earthquake.

Many hospitals in northwestern Syria were left non-operational due to damage from the earthquake , and patients were stranded. In their Sept. 13, 2023, northwest Syria situation report , UNOCHA said, “nearly a third of 601 health facilities in north-west Syria are non-functional, 67 of them were damaged by the earthquakes.”

Water, sanitation and hygiene issues were pressing in Turkey as well, with data showing a high number of people per toilet and shower ratios within affected area campsites. There are also concerns about increasing health issues within tent camps.

The gap in access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene facilities can lead to poor health outcomes , the spread of diseases and exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. Scaling up services for sexual and reproductive health and violence against women, girls and other individuals in situations of vulnerability is another need.

Livelihood and food security

In the Syria earthquake Flash Appeal launched by the UN and humanitarian partners, one of the three strategic objectives was to “support livelihoods and basic services in areas affected by the earthquake.”

In addition to cash assistance, strengthening livelihoods is important, considering Syrian households have gradually lost their purchasing power while food prices have almost doubled since last year.

Very little funding had been committed to support socioeconomic early recovery. An ongoing need is to support small and medium-sized enterprises, cooperatives and local farmers to resume economic activity, including income-generating activities in the most affected areas.

The NGO Support to Life said in their Turkey earthquake Aug. 17, 2023, situation report , “Enhancing support mechanisms for improving economic conditions in the earthquake-affected region is becoming crucial. Small and medium-sized businesses, cooperatives, local farmers, and workers have been particularly negatively affected.”

Mental health and psychosocial support

The earthquake affected people already displaced and will result in new displacements, which are a significant change in people’s way of life, perhaps including loss of livelihood, extreme poverty and damaged social support structure. Because of the ongoing conflict, displaced Syrians also may have post-traumatic stress disorder.

The number of people with mental health conditions is expected to increase post-earthquake while also limiting access for many people in need to the already scarcely available mental health services in Syria. According to UNOCHA, in northwest Syria, 994,500 persons have a mental disorder , and 229,500 have severe mental disorders. However, only 24 psychologists were available in the area.

Survivors of the deadly earthquakes are forced to deal with lasting trauma . In northwest Syria, psychological first aid, case management and safe service points are overwhelmed with rising needs .

At the one-year mark since the quake, survivors continued to deal with the mental trauma associated with the disaster. Challenges accessing ongoing mental health treatment and social stigma remained.

Protection and support for marginalized populations

After a disaster, protecting marginalized individuals and ensuring access to their basic rights are immediate priorities.

According to UNOCHA , “Gender inequality exacerbates the impact of disasters, and the impacts of disasters exacerbate gender inequality and vulnerability. Of particular concern are vulnerable women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities who are disproportionally affected. Learning from other similar contexts, the risks of sexual exploitation and abuse will likely increase with the limitation of mobility in the earthquake response, disruption of social safety nets and the lack of information around confidential reporting mechanisms makes it difficult for survivors (including children) to access whatever response services remain operational.”

Due to the layout and population density of some settlement sites, women and girls face increased protection risk of exploitation and abuse. In many of such sites, a lack of sex-segregated toilets, overcrowding, and an absence of privacy in water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and tent areas, has led to an increase in sexual violence risks, particularly against women and adolescent girls.

The Turkey Protection Sector Post-Earthquake Inter-Agency Needs Assessment Round 7 interviewed 3,803 earthquake-affected households between July 6-29, 2023. Key findings included about half of all respondents reported feeling adequately informed about their rights and the services available in Turkey (compared to 56% in Round 6). Also, in the previous six months, 90% of respondents attempted to access services and among these, 44% reported not being able to access them.

CARE, a humanitarian organization, released its first Rapid Gender Analysis (RGA) Brief for the earthquake . The RGA “explores existing gender, age and disability data and information to understand pre-existing vulnerabilities and capacities and how best humanitarians can respond to meet people’s different needs.” Recommendations to humanitarian actors, international non-government organizations and AFAD include:

• Collaborate with relevant local and national actors, including women-led organizations and women’s rights organizations who are often leading GBV prevention and response efforts.Assess sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment risk factors and integrate these into program planning and ensure all stakeholders have been informed about services and referral pathways.

The Disability and Inclusion Task Force shared with CDP in June 2023 that underfunded areas include special needs rehabilitation, physiotherapy, assistive devices and prosthetics; access to services through transportation, interpretation and receiving health reports; studies to explore the needs and challenges of people with disabilities nationally; and training on disabilities and inclusion mainstreaming.

Almost 417,000 older people are classified as the most “at-risk” group in northwest Syria, especially those living in poverty and providing care to other household members.

A report published by HelpAge International and Action for Humanity in February 2024 revealed that exclusion from the workforce leaves older people marginalized and older people with disabilities struggle to earn respect or recognition. Older people emphasized the need to prioritize initiatives that promote their self-reliance.

Organizations led by and serving LGBTQIA+ people in Turkey and northwest Syria face operational challenges and most operate and provide assistance through formal and informal networks. LGBTQIA+ people in these contexts face discrimination and are often unable or unwilling to seek assistance or are actively excluded from receiving assistance. Reaching LGBTQIA+ people needs to be done through NGOs focused on this population, networks or local partners who are LGBTQIA+ friendly.

There was a significant increase in racism against refugees in Turkey, affecting their ability to access and receive assistance and also negatively impacting tasks such as obtaining bank accounts, credit, dealing with suppliers or for children facing racism and verbal and physical violence in schools. Targeted assistance and support for this group of people are needed.

The significant damage to community infrastructure, such as schools, hospitals, religious facilities, and housing in Turkey and Syria will require immediate and long-term assistance.

According to the Syria earthquake Flash Appeal , “The earthquake has not only resulted in additional displacement due to damaged/unsafe shelter but has also diminished the prospects for safe return of IDPs originally from earthquake-affected areas. Safe shelter will be one of the main needs in the aftermath of the earthquake.”

The government of Turkey focused on establishing more formal sites and phasing out informal sites, however, it could take more than two years for people to move out of these informal and formal settlements and into their homes.

Evacuations from tent areas to containers have been ongoing since June 2023. Formal container sites in Turkey were being expanded as households from formal tents continue to be relocated.

The Turkey Earthquakes Recovery and Reconstruction Assessment outlines a set of key principles “to ensure that the recovery from the earthquake is resilient, inclusive, green and sustainable.”

In February 2024, IFRC and the Shelter Cluster released a lessons learned report from the earthquake response. It is projected that many of the earthquake-affected populations will continue to live in temporary shelters for the next three to four years, until they have more permanent options available. The report’s recommendations include improving the livability in temporary shelters, focusing on light repairs of low-damaged buildings, improving the participation of local organizations and ensuring protection concerns are addressed.

Although local and national governments are responsible for building codes and ensuring they are enforced, philanthropy can support efforts to reduce vulnerability in the built environment through research, advocacy and safe reconstruction.

CDP has a Turkey & Syria Earthquake Recovery Fund that supports earthquake-affected families and communities as they work to rebuild and recover.

Contact cdp, philanthropic contributions.

If you would like to make a donation to the CDP Turkey & Syria Earthquake Recovery Fund , need help with your disaster-giving strategy or want to share how you’re responding to this disaster,   please contact  development.

(Photo: The Turkish Army supports search and rescue efforts in Turkey after the earthquake, Feb. 6, 2023. Source: Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Defence;  via Twitter )

Recovery updates

If you are a responding NGO, please send updates on how you are working in this crisis to [email protected].

We welcome the republication of our content. Please credit the  Center for Disaster Philanthropy .

Philanthropic and government support

On Feb. 16, 2023, CDP hosted a webinar, “ A layered disaster: Supporting long-term recovery in Turkey and Syria .” Speakers shared the latest information, including critical needs and gaps, and provide concrete takeaways for funders to effectively support relief and recovery efforts now underway.

The following are examples of grants CDP has provided through its Turkey and Syria Earthquake Recovery Fund :

• $250,000 to Norwegian Refugee Council USA in 2024 to deliver education in emergency and psychosocial support to children, youth, teachers and parents in Syria as part of the Right to Wellbeing 2025 initiative.
• $199,680 to Aman Project in 2023 to support vulnerable earthquake-affected LGBTQIA+ refugees in Turkey with temporary shelter, cash assistance and support accessing services to ensure their basic needs are met and they are able to recover their lives and livelihoods.
• $250,000 to Building Markets Ltd in 2023 to provide marginalized refugee entrepreneurs with tools and financial recovery plans to restart their small businesses, supporting the economic recovery of their own households and their employees.
• $200,000 to Guardians of Equality Movement in 2023 to combat the psychological and economic impact on the most vulnerable earthquake-affected LGBTQIA+ populations in southeast Turkey and northwest Syria and build their long-term resilience.
• $750,000 to Hayata Destek Dernegi/Support to Life in 2023 to work with earthquake-affected communities in Turkey to implement 90 community-identified projects t hrough the survivor and community-led approach .
• $40,000 to MapAction in 2023 to provide essential maps and data insights after the earthquakes to assist partners, including United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination and the World Health Organization, in responding to the humanitarian emergencies in Turkey and Syria.
• $350,000 to Menekşe Organizasyon Sosyal ‎Yardimlaşma Ve Dayanişma Derneği (Violet Organization of Relief and Development) in 2023 to support vulnerable earthquake-affected communities, especially women and youth, to rebuild their livelihoods and resilience following the devastating earthquake in Syria.
• $750,000 to Sened Derneği in 2023 to provide multi-sectoral and integrated shelter, protection, education and livelihood support to the most vulnerable earthquake-affected individuals, with a particular focus on children, older adults and people living with disabilities.
• $500,000 to Toplum Kalkinma Derneği in 2023 to reconstruct the marketplace in Jandairis, creating a vibrant, inclusive hub for commerce, trade and entrepreneurship, fostering economic growth, community development and social cohesion post-earthquake.

The Council on Foundations published a list of resources to guide the philanthropic response to the Turkey and Syria Earthquake. Candid is tracking the global response to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria and, as of April 15, 2024, there are 520 grants and pledges worth more than $495 million, including 465 grants worth $289,027,690 and 55 pledges worth $205,938,679.

Of the $493 million, around 94% were added to Candid’s database within three months of the disaster. This is in line with what is typical after a disaster – a surge of giving followed by a slowdown the farther we get from the event. More support is needed for recovery, and philanthropy is uniquely positioned to provide this support given its ability to be flexible and innovative and to operate on different timelines than other donor groups.

The UN and humanitarian partners launched an earthquake Flash Appeal for Syria covering February to March 2023. The Flash Appeal requests $397.6 million to reach 4.9 million people and is complementary to the 2022-2023 Syria Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). As of July 20, 2024, donors had funded 100% of the Flash Appeal; however, the HRP was only 38.1% funded as of April 15, 2024.

An earthquake Flash Appeal for Turkey was announced on Feb. 17, 2023, and covered February to April 2023. Turkey’s Flash Appeal requests $1 billion to reach 5.2 million people. As of April 15, 2024, donors had funded 56.3% of the Flash Appeal.

The UN’s Connecting Business Initiative Network in Turkey was actively involved in the response. The network is mobilizing its regional federations to support efforts on the ground. An example of corporate engagement is the partnership between the International Organization for Migration, Amazon and the UPS Foundation,  which led to deliveries of humanitarian aid to the earthquake zone in southeast Turkey and northwest Syria.

On Feb. 9, 2023, the World Bank announced $1.78 billion in assistance to help with Turkey’s relief and recovery efforts. Immediate assistance totaling $780 million will be provided and an additional $1 billion in operations is also being prepared.

Governments around the world were quick to respond to requests for international assistance , including Arab countries. A day after the earthquake, the United Arab Emirates announced $100 million in humanitarian assistance.  Alliance reports that governments and charities across Asia have also been mobilizing to respond to the earthquakes’ devastation.

U.S. President Joe Biden “ authorized an immediate U.S. response ” in the aftermath of the earthquake. On Feb. 10, 2023, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) pledged $85 million for shelter, cold weather supplies, food, water and healthcare. Samantha Power, the USAID director, deployed a Disaster Assistance Response Team. On Feb. 19, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced an additional $100 million in aid for Turkey and Syria.

The European Commission said on March 20, 2023, it would support Turkey with $1.07 billion (€1 billion) to help with reconstruction . Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, also pledged more than $115 million (€108 million) in humanitarian aid for Syria at the opening of a donors’ conference in Brussels.  On March 21, 2023, around $7.5 billion (€7 billion) were pledged by the international community at the “ Together for the people of Türkiye and Syria” International Donors’ Conference .

More ways to help

CDP has also created a  list of suggestions  for foundations to consider related to disaster giving. These include:

• Prioritize investments in local organizations : Local humanitarian leaders and organizations play a vital role in providing immediate relief and setting the course for long-term equitable recovery in communities after a disaster or crisis. However, these leaders and organizations are mostly under-resourced and underfunded. Grant to locally-led entities as much as possible, especially considering the vast majority of the NGOs in the northwest Syria NGO Forum are Syrian-led. In northwest Syria, the response and recovery is very much locally-led and these organizations need flexible and stable funding. When granting to trusted international partners with deep roots in targeted countries, more consideration should be given to those that empower local and national stakeholders.
• Take the long view: Even while focusing on immediate needs, remember that it will take some time for the full range of needs to emerge. Be patient in planning for disaster funding. Recovery will take a long time and while recovery efforts can begin immediately, funding will be needed throughout. The latest humanitarian response plans now include planning, prioritizing and implementing recovery activities.
• All funders are disaster philanthropists: Even if your organization does not work in a particular geographic area or fund immediate relief efforts, you can look for ways to tie disaster funding into your existing mission. If you focus on education, health, children or vulnerable populations, disasters present prime opportunities for funding these target populations or thematic areas.
• Ask the experts: If you are considering supporting an organization that is positioned to work in an affected area, do some research. CDP and  InterAction  can provide resources and guidance about organizations working in affected communities.

See them all

Earthquakes

Striking without warning, earthquakes often are among the most devastating disasters. Caused by the movement of plates along fault lines on the earth’s surface, earthquakes often leave a monumental path of instant death and destruction.

Complex Humanitarian Emergencies

CHEs involve an acute emergency layered over ongoing instability. Multiple scenarios can cause CHEs, like the civil wars in Syria and Yemen, the man-made political crisis in Venezuela, or the public health crisis in Congo.

Disaster Phases

Disasters affect millions of people and cause billions of dollars in damage globally each year. To help understand and manage disasters, practitioners, academics and government agencies frame disasters in phases.

There’s Nothing Natural about Turkey’s Earthquake Disaster

Erdoğan’s akp failed to plan for a catastrophe—but did create a strategy to use this catastrophe to stay in power.

Turkey and Syria earthquake, 2023. Image credit: twintyre / Shutterstock

The current crisis in Turkey is not a natural disaster but a political one. We knew that a massive earthquake would hit southeastern Turkey. For many years, several geologists have not only specified where the fault line would most likely break but also which individual settlements the ensuing earthquake would target. No one can pretend that the February 7 earthquake in Turkey was unexpected, yet thousands of people still died due to this disaster. 

The area affected by the earthquake is roughly as big as Indiana or Portugal. It hit 10 out of the 81 provinces in Turkey, which contain the hometowns of 13.4 million people and 3.3 million households, approximately 16 percent of Turkey’s total population. 

According to the initial official count, at least 6,444 residential buildings collapsed due to the earthquake. According to my calculations, based on the Turkish Statistical Institute’s recent National Building Survey , roughly 60,000 people lived in those buildings. So no one should be surprised if the final count hits a six-digit number, and it will likely exclude many undocumented Syrian immigrants, currently the target of a hate campaign by the Right in Turkey.

Constituting 9 percent of the national economy in 2021, this region was also one of the fastest growing portions of the country economically with a flourishing manufacturing base. It produced roughly 10 percent of Turkey’s manufacturing output, while these 10 provinces together have grown their share in the country’s manufacturing output by 27 percent since 2004. Gaziantep, the biggest industrial producer among them, raised its share in the nation’s manufacturing output by 42 percent. 

The Turkish public wants answers. Why did government agencies respond so ineffectively to the earthquake? And how did the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) set the stage for “the mass destruction” of tens of thousands of innocent souls?

Government in absentia

The government failed (or chose not) to mobilize its resources within the first three days of the aftermath. This failure, or decision, inflated the number of fatalities due to many factors, including hypothermia. Over two dozen informants in my years-long research project in Gaziantep in the 2010s have verified that in their cities, no government agency reached out to the victims, even in city centers, to conduct, initiate, or at least coordinate rescue efforts in the critical hours and days after the earthquake. Many people died because there was no access to the simplest equipment such as pneumatic breaker hammers (or people who could operate them). 

Turkey is not a poor country. It has significant financial resources, sufficient technological infrastructure, and a relatively well-educated, trained workforce to intervene effectively and quickly in such disaster zones. It has NATO’s second-largest standing army and the eleventh-largest in the world, with 425,000 active personnel . 

Furthermore, the Ministry of Interior’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) had an annual budget of roughly U.S. $600 million in 2022. And the AKP, which has been in government since 2002, has collected roughly $36.5 billion in taxes or “the special communication tax” for a so-called “earthquake fund”, while it is not clear where and how the AKP spent this resource or whether this resource is still available to help the victims.

The AKP also takes pride in the fact that Turkey is “one of the largest humanitarian donors globally, spending billions of dollars.”  Turkey ranked first in the world in terms of the proportion of its GDP devoted to foreign aid in the late 2010s and second only to the United States in terms of the amount of money spent on foreign aid. So if Turkey had these resources to spend and billions of dollars in the government’s budget for earthquake relief, why should it still need to solicit money from the public now to help earthquake victims? 

The answer may be the AKP’s desire to bypass civil society’s efforts to directly reach out to earthquake victims because they are aware that it shows the people the incapacity of the government to effectively govern the country. Thanks to social media, millions of people in Turkey immediately sought alternative ways to help. Because many of these citizens believe that the AKP would pocket donated aid, and the “earthquake taxes” they have paid since the early 2000s seem to have vanished, they are now reluctant to donate money to government agencies. 

A republic of corrupt contractors

People in Turkey are particularly frustrated by the poor enforcement of construction codes that set the stage for the disaster .

As of now, we do not know how many of the collapsed buildings were built after the AKP came to power in 2002. But we know that 51 percent of the population in these 10 cities resided in buildings constructed after 2001 . The internet is saturated with videos of collapsing buildings that were only a decade old. In addition, friends, family members, and former research informants verify that there is no evidence that newer buildings outperformed older ones in terms of earthquake resilience. These onsite observations may be disproved, but this question remains: why has the AKP government let the older buildings sit on their lots for the last 22 years even though we knew that this disaster was going to happen? 

The answer to this question is not “the lack of resources.” First, Euronews in collaboration with the Chamber of Architects of Turkey has calculated that the $36.5 billion collected as a “special communication tax,” intended to establish an earthquake relief fund, was enough to cover the construction costs of roughly 1.3 million 1,000-square-feet or 93-square-meter of housing units. To put this figure into perspective, the region affected by the earthquake had roughly 1.5 million residential buildings. 

Second, private construction contractors have made exorbitant profits during the AKP era. Profits that could have been properly taxed to enforce the construction codes and renew the older building stock. Turkey has spent a significant portion of its national savings on construction since the early 2000s: approximately 1.05 million residential buildings with two or more floors were built in the first fifteen years of AKP rule. When the party came to power in 2002, the construction industry produced roughly 5 percent of the national value added. These figures grew, with a short interruption due to the 2008 global financial crisis, reaching 9.5 percent in 2017. 

In other words, the construction industry doubled its share of the national economy under the AKP government, while the related figures for the global average declined for the same time period from 6.2 percent to 5.5 percent. 

This marked a massive transfer of wealth to a coalition of construction contractors and manufacturing exporters. My calculations based on the Turkish Revenue Administration’s (TRA) construction cost index used for tax appraisal purposes and the Turkish Statistical Institute’s data on the registered value of new buildings for 2003–2017 illustrate a growing gap between the construction costs and the registered value of those new buildings: 1.05 million residential buildings constructed in this period were worth $515 billion, a figure equal to 60 percent of the Turkish GDP in 2017.

But the government chose not to use this growing pie as a resource to renovate older buildings, and builders chose investing in new construction projects, a much more profitable enterprise than fixing the older residential buildings.  If the ratio of the total registered value of the residential buildings constructed in 2003 to their total construction cost had remained the same for 2003–2017, the registered total value of the 1.05 million residential buildings constructed in these 15 years should have been $416 billion. Had the multistory residential buildings been built to the highest safety standards between 2003 and 2017 and the contractors of these buildings accrued the same profits as they did in 2003, new construction would have earned roughly $99 billion less than the actual amount they pocketed in this period. 

In short, consumers paid extremely high sales taxes for “the earthquake fund” in the last two decades, only to find themselves buried under the wreckage of their own homes. But the contractors pocketed additional tens of billions of dollars. It could have been different, though. The AKP government could have either used that 36.5 billion in “the earthquake fund” or taxed that $99 billion to rehabilitate older buildings and properly enforce the construction code.

One relevant question is, of course, where this $99 billion came from. The answer is a globalized financial market. Like China and many other export-oriented economies, Turkey buried a significant portion of its growing export revenue in the ground. And a major reason for this massive misuse of resources was the lack of perspective, creativity, and perseverance of the small- and medium-sized manufacturing exporters, many of whom made small fortunes thanks to the cheap labor of millions of industrious workers. Instead of using their growing manufacturing export income for high-tech and environmentally friendly investment projects, manufacturers chose to buy real estate as a way to save the value of their swiftly accumulating wealth. 

In other words, the construction business in Turkey is a very costly and primitive form of banking for the nouveau riche.

The result of this real estate frenzy has been the mushrooming of vacant housing units all over the country. According to estimates done by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, 400,000 to 700,000 of the housing units in Istanbul are vacant; this corresponds to roughly 2 percent of the entire housing stock in the country. There is no reason to believe that the situation is fundamentally different in other cities, so the share of the national housing stock’s vacant residential units could be as high as 10 percent. This is particularly alarming because the urban poor in Turkey’s metropolitan regions suffer from a severe housing crisis .

The massive wealth transfer from workers to manufacturing exporters and then to construction constructors has been one of the reasons why the AKP government has let the real estate frenzy flourish since the early 2000s. As the earthquake bitterly reminds us, this vicious cycle has not only constricted the distribution of income and wealth in the country but now cost thousands their lives.

Disasters and elections

The AKP came to power in 2002 after a 1999 earthquake in the northwestern region of the country that cost 18,373 people their lives and an economic crisis in 2001 that was the most severe in the history of the Republic. Much like the current earthquake, the 1999 disaster hit one of the economically most vibrant regions of the country and was one factor in triggering the economic crisis two years later.

The AKP seized upon the 1999 earthquake as a political metaphor. Both Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the current president of Turkey, and the Islamist media called the disaster a sign of “the collapse of the state” (See Yeni Şafak ).  Some Islamists even dared to frame the disaster as God’s punishment for the debauchery of women who were not in hijab. In other words, both parties used the earthquake and the financial crisis to justify the moral and economic merits of a prospective Islamist government. 

The parallels between these incidents and what is happening now resonate for many in Turkey. Per capita income in Turkey has been declining for nine years, and the 2023 earthquake was even more devastating than the one in 1999. Could this dual crisis lead to a revolt at the ballot box just like the one in 2002 that brought the AKP to power—but in reverse? The regime certainly thinks so. There are the presidential and parliamentary elections this year, and Erdoğan’s clique has been working on a “damage control” strategy since the moment the earthquake struck. In the wake of a brief TV appearance roughly 10 hours later, Erdoğan disappeared for 25 hours, even as people buried under the wreckage waited for help. The Erdoğan government seemed not to use this time to coordinate rescue efforts but to re-frame their election and propaganda strategy. 

Putting all the pieces together, five components seem to make up the backbone of their master plan. 

The first is to prevent the victims’ frustration from taking over the national political agenda. An emphasis on the magnitude of the earthquake by government officials and government-led media is part of this tactic. The government right now is working to convince the public that they could not have done anything to save the people since the earthquake was exceptionally severe. 

Second, there are strong signals on social media that Erdoğan and his clique are refining and disseminating a conspiracy theory: that the United States triggered the earthquake with its advanced military technologies. 

A third and similar component is to present anonymous civilians, not contractors, the government, or the real criminals, as “looters,” the “bad apples” of an otherwise glorious nation, at the center of a hate campaign. Erdoğan dedicated a significant portion of his February 10 speech in Adıyaman to the condemnation of looters, establishing a symbolic link between them and his political opponents. As he promised his audience, “we will allow neither the looters nor those, who turn our pain to a political looting strategy, to achieve their goals.” This rhetoric is very dangerous, literally blaming the victims in disaster-struck regions, some of whom, in the absence of government assistance, have to procure basic needs such as food, clean water, or diapers from the closed supermarkets and grocery shops nearby. 

After Erdoğan’s speech, social media was filled with disturbing reports and videos of civilians severely beaten up by the police. In one reported case, an alleged looter died in the police station after he, according to the official report , “hit his head to the wall when he was under arrest.” Mobs joined law enforcement in this anti-looter campaign. In one video , the corpses of three young men were piled up on the street by mob members, who killed them to allegedly protect their decades-old furniture and appliances. In another video of the same incident , the law enforcement officers are seen to be simply standing by while the mob was cheerfully taking pictures and videos of the corpses as a symbolic trophy of their victory.

The fourth part of the plan is to use the disaster to curb democratic rights before this year’s election. The AKP government declared a three-month-long state of emergency in the earthquake zones, where roughly 16 percent of the population resides. Kurds and Alevis account for a major portion of these voters, and Kurds’ votes will likely play a decisive role in election results. Polls consistently show that the two election blocs—respectively led by Erdoğan’s Islamist party and the social democratic main opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—have close voting shares. 

So no one should be surprised if the AKP government turns the earthquake into a part of its broader voter suppression strategy, just as it did a few years ago: during the two-year-long nationwide state of emergency after the failed coup attempt in the summer of 2016, the Islamist government silenced the opposition to pass constitutional amendments in 2017 that helped Erdoğan to consolidate his strongman regime. Importantly, if the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) supports the main opposition’s election bloc, Erdoğan’s election coalition will likely lose the election; if they can be swung to the AKP, it will win.

Finally, the AKP government will also use the disaster to promise investment that will consolidate its support among the owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing and construction industries. It is notable that one of Erdoğan’s first post-earthquake promises was not to swiftly save victims from the wreckage but to reconstruct those collapsed buildings “in one year.” 

Similarly, in his first press declaration one day after the earthquake, Mustafa Varank, the Minister of Industry and Technology and Erdoğan’s right arm, joyfully stated that “the earthquake did not affect the industrial facilities in the region and this is good news.” Varank also knows that the immediate problem before him is not a humanitarian crisis but the economic consequences of the disaster for SME owners: without their support, the AKP government cannot stay in power. 

In other words, the parallels between the conditions before the AKP’s rise to power in 2002 and the current circumstances are strong, and Erdoğan’s clique has a well-thought-out political and economic strategy that makes the earthquake the centerpiece of their path to victory in the next election. We can only hope that Turkish voters see through it, establishing the connection between this disaster and decades of corrupt policies this time and making a firm decision about what they want for their own future.

Utku Balaban is Associate Professor in the Department of Race, Intersectionality, Gender, and Sociology at Xavier University.

Utku Balaban

Associate Professor of Sociology, Xavier University

One thought on “ There’s Nothing Natural about Turkey’s Earthquake Disaster ”

Excellent research. That was my point from the beginning. Turkey is riche why does it call for international help. I believed who needed help are the poor Syrians, falling between a tyrannical ruling and the earthquake.

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The 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake

In this GEO unit you'll learn about the earthquake that struck near the city of Gaziantep, Turkey, on 6 February 2023, understanding the causes, effects and the severe and extensive impact of the event on people in both Turkey and Syria.

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